Appeal No. 2005-1997 Page 5
Application No. 09/493,319
(Final Rej.2 at 2.) Claim 49 stands rejected under § 103(a) as obvious over Nakajima;
Nishida; and U.S. Patent No. 5,771,031 ("Kinoshita"). (Id. at 4.)
II. OPINION
Our opinion addresses the claims in the following order:
• claims 50-52 and 54
• claims 45-48 and 53
• claim 49.
A. CLAIMS 50-52 AND 54
"[T]o assure separate review by the Board of individual claims within each group
of claims subject to a common ground of rejection, an appellant's brief to the Board
must contain a clear statement for each rejection: (a) asserting that the patentability of
claims within the group of claims subject to this rejection do not stand or fall together,
and (b) identifying which individual claim or claims within the group are separately
patentable and the reasons why the examiner's rejection should not be sustained." In
re McDaniel, 293 F.3d 1379, 1383, 63 USPQ2d 1462, 1465 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (citing 37
C.F.R. §1.192(c)(7) (2001)). "If the brief fails to meet either requirement, the Board is
2"We advise the examiner to copy his rejections into his examiner’s answers," Ex
parte Metcalf, 67 USPQ2d 1633, 1635 n.1 (Bd.Pat.App.& Int. 2003), rather than merely
referring to a "rejection . . . set forth in a prior Office Action. . . ." (Examiner’s Answer
at 3.)
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